As
accounts of past sexual indiscretions threatened to surface during
Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, the job of stifling potentially
damaging stories fell to his longtime lawyer and all-around fixer,
Michael D. Cohen.
To
protect his boss at critical junctures in his improbable political
rise, the lawyer relied on intimidation tactics, hush money and the
nation’s leading tabloid news business, American Media Inc., whose top
executives include close Trump allies.
Mr.
Cohen’s role has come under scrutiny amid recent revelations that he
facilitated a payment to silence a porn star, but his aggressive
behind-the-scenes efforts stretch back years, according to interviews,
emails and other records.
They
intensified as Mr. Trump’s campaign began in the summer of 2015, when a
former hedge-fund manager told Mr. Cohen that he had obtained
photographs of Mr. Trump with a bare-breasted woman. The man said Mr.
Cohen first blew up at him, then steered him to David J. Pecker,
chairman of the tabloid company, which sometimes bought, then buried,
embarrassing material about his high-profile friends and allies.
In early 2016, after a legal affairs website uncovered
old court cases in which a female former Trump business partner had
accused him of sexual misconduct, Mr. Cohen released a statement
suggesting that the woman, Jill Harth, “would acknowledge” that the
story was false. Ms. Harth said the statement was made without her
permission, and that she stands by her claims. It was not the last time
Mr. Cohen would present a denial on behalf of a woman who had alleged a
sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.
In
August of that year, Mr. Cohen learned details of a deal that American
Media had struck with a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, that
prevented her from going public about an alleged affair with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cohen was not representing anyone in the confidential agreement, but
he was apprised of it by Ms. McDougal’s lawyer, and earlier had been
made aware of her attempt to tell her story by the media company,
according to interviews and an email reviewed by The New York Times.
Two
months later, Mr. Cohen played a direct role in a similar deal
involving an adult film star, Stephanie Clifford, who used the stage
name Stormy Daniels, and who once said she had had an affair with Mr. Trump. Last week, Mr. Cohen said he used his own money for the $130,000 payment to her, which has prompted a complaint
alleging that Mr. Cohen violated campaign finance regulations. Legal
experts also have noted that the payment on behalf of his client may
have violated New York’s ethics rules.
Mr.
Cohen, who is still described as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer although
he is no longer on the Trump Organization payroll, has denied any
wrongdoing and insists the arrangement was legal. In an interview, he
disputed details of some of his other activities that were described to
The Times. But he has never shied away from his role as Mr. Trump’s
loyal defender. “It is not like I just work for Mr. Trump,” Mr. Cohen
said in an interview in 2016. “I am his friend, and I would do just
about anything for him and also his family.”
An
examination of the efforts to shield Mr. Trump from aspects of his own
past shows how Mr. Cohen maneuvered in the pay-to-play gossip world —
populated by porn stars and centerfold models, tabloid editors and
lawyers with B- and C-list entertainment clients — that came to unusual
prominence in an American presidential election.
Mr.
Cohen exploited mutual-self interest. By heading off trouble involving
Mr. Trump’s history with women, he accrued loyalty points, the ultimate
currency with Mr. Trump. He dealt with lawyers who could win fat cuts of
any settlements women might reach with American Media or with Mr.
Trump.
At
least two women got money and, in Ms. McDougal’s case, a promise of
favorable attention in American Media publications, which include The
National Enquirer, Star, Us Weekly and Radar. Mr. Trump, of course,
benefited the most: avoiding more scrutiny as he struggled to dismiss
multiple allegations of groping and unwanted advances that arose during
the campaign.
One
American Media executive, in a 2016 interview, said that the priority
was that nothing embarrassing come out. But in the gossip economy,
secrets last only as long as the incentives to keep them do.
Risqué Photos
It
was July 2015 when Mr. Cohen received a phone call from Jeremy Frommer,
a hedge-fund manager turned digital entrepreneur, who had obtained
photos of Mr. Trump appearing to autograph the breasts of a topless
woman from the estate of Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse
magazine. Mr. Cohen was not pleased.
“He was in a rage,” Mr. Frommer said in an interview. “He’s like, ‘If you show those photos, I’m gonna take you down.’”
It
was the rough talk of a Long Island native who started his career
juggling work as a personal injury lawyer and taxi fleet manager and met
Mr. Trump after acquiring units in Trump buildings.
After
Mr. Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, the role that Mr.
Trump wanted him to play was clear: a combination of aggressive
spokesman and lieutenant who would take on the real estate mogul’s
antagonists. It was a job Roy Cohn, a New York lawyer best known for
advising Senator Joseph McCarthy, had done decades earlier for Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen’s work for his boss was often a mystery even to others in his office, but his devotion was clear.
In
talking with Mr. Cohen, Mr. Frommer mentioned Mr. Pecker. Years
earlier, Mr. Frommer had sold American Media the exclusive rights to a
suggestive photograph of Arnold Schwarzenegger — which it did not
publish — and he knew the company’s chief executive.
Mr. Frommer recalled Mr. Cohen’s saying, “Yeah, I know Pecker.” Mr. Frommer added, “That’s where the conversation calmed down.”
Mr.
Pecker and Mr. Trump, a staple of the American gossip media since the
1980s, have a friendship that goes back decades. The relationship
benefited Mr. Trump throughout the campaign as The Enquirer lionized him
and hammered rivals like Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and, finally, Hillary
Clinton.
Mr.
Cohen formed his own bond with Mr. Pecker, keeping in touch with him
and Dylan Howard, a top executive, throughout the campaign.
American
Media acknowledged those ties, saying in a statement, “Michael Cohen
and President Trump have been personal friends of Mr. Pecker’s for
decades.” But, it said, neither of them “nor any other individual has
attempted to, or ever, influenced (or will ever influence) coverage at
A.M.I.’s publications. Period.”
After
the initial blowup, Mr. Frommer said, he and Mr. Cohen quickly agreed
that Mr. Frommer would take the Trump photos to Mr. Pecker. The men soon
began discussing potential business deals, including an interview with
Mr. Trump as part of a joint project between American Media and Mr.
Frommer’s company, Jerrick Media, according to text messages and emails
reviewed by The Times.
“Spoke to Cohen we are set. Well done!” Mr. Pecker told Mr. Frommer in a July 2015 text exchange.
Two
months later, when Mr. Frommer expressed doubt that the Trump interview
would take place, Mr. Cohen responded in an Oct. 5 email: “No no …
relax. I am on it and will make it happen.”
Mr.
Frommer said he had assured Mr. Cohen at the time that he wouldn’t make
the photos public — “I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to publish
them’” — but that the decision had nothing to do with the business
talks.
In
the end, American Media concluded that the photos were of little value.
The interview and the deals never materialized for Mr. Frommer, who
went on to publish one of the Trump photos on his own website.
American
Media said in a statement that it had no interest in suppressing the
photographs. But in early 2016, an American Media executive, speaking
only on condition of anonymity in discussing internal company thinking,
said that when the negotiations between A.M.I. and Mr. Frommer began,
they were intended to suppress the photos, part of broader efforts by
American Media to “catch and kill” information that would damage Mr.
Trump.
In
an interview Friday, Mr. Cohen acknowledged directing Mr. Frommer to
A.M.I., but said he did so not because of photographs of Mr. Trump but
for other photos of “another notable individual that I had no interest
in seeing or wanting.”
Back
then, however, Mr. Cohen acknowledged that he had been eager to keep
the photos hidden. “Mr. Trump has a family,” he said. “I felt like I had
to protect his family.”
A Playmate’s Story
For
Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump, American Media was more than a company they
could rely on for friendly coverage. It was also where people looking to
sell potentially damaging information about Mr. Trump were likely to
turn.
In
the summer of 2016, American Media came to Mr. Cohen with a story
involving Ms. McDougal, the former Playboy Playmate. She claimed to have
had a consensual affair with Mr. Trump in the mid-2000s, early in his
marriage to Melania Trump. Mr. Trump denies an affair.
Ms.
McDougal had retained Keith Davidson, a Hollywood lawyer, who reached
out to contacts at American Media. After negotiating on and off for a
couple of months, A.M.I. agreed to give Ms. McDougal $150,000 for the
exclusive rights to her story, along with promises of publicity and
marketing opportunities through its fitness magazines. The contract did
not identify Mr. Trump, but required her to keep quiet about any
relationship with a married man.
A.M.I.
had shared her allegations with Mr. Cohen, though it said it did so
only as it worked to corroborate her claims, which it said it ultimately
could not do. But that was not the only heads-up Mr. Cohen received.
Soon
after Ms. McDougal signed the confidential agreement on Aug. 5, 2016,
Mr. Davidson emailed
Mr. Cohen, “Michael, please give me a call at your
convenience.” Mr. Davidson followed up by explaining to Mr. Cohen over
the phone that the McDougal transaction had been completed, according to
a person familiar with the conversation. Mr. Cohen said, “I don’t
recall those communications.”
Mr.
Davidson acknowledged the public’s interest in Ms. Clifford’s and Ms.
McDougal’s stories, but said that he was “not at liberty to discuss
private client information.”
In
the months after Ms. McDougal’s agreement with A.M.I., Mr. Trump’s
relationships with women drew more scrutiny on the campaign trail. The
release of an audio recording that captured the candidate bragging about
grabbing women’s genitals inspired numerous women to step forward with
allegations that he had groped or kissed them against their will.
According
to people in contact with her at the time, Ms. McDougal expressed
frustration with what she viewed as foot-dragging by A.M.I. in
fulfilling commitments made in her contract and with Mr. Davidson’s
lackluster response to her. She reached out to a prominent First
Amendment lawyer, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who had made a public pledge
in October 2016 to defend anyone threatened with legal action by Mr.
Trump for making allegations against him. Mr. Boutrous briefly
represented Ms. McDougal, focusing primarily on her restrictive contract
with A.M.I., which in late November 2016 agreed she could respond to
“legitimate” press inquiries about the alleged affair.
Ms. McDougal’s story eventually became public, in a Wall Street Journal article published days before the election. The New Yorker published new details, including an interview with her, last week.
Quelling a Storm
Over the years Mr. Cohen had come to know Ms. McDougal’s lawyer, Mr. Davidson, well enough that when New York magazine profiled Mr. Davidson
last week, Mr. Cohen offered an enthusiastic endorsement: “He has
always been professional, ethical and a true gentleman.” (The California
State Bar suspended Mr. Davidson’s law license for 90 days in 2010, for four counts of misconduct.)
Mr.
Davidson’s client list had included the professional athletes Jalen
Rose and Manny Pacquiao, as well as gossip-page regulars who placed him
in the middle of the sex-tape cases of the “Austin Powers” actor Verne
Troyer, the wrestler Hulk Hogan and the onetime Playboy model and MTV
host Tila Tequila. He was a natural choice for Ms. Clifford, also known
as Stormy Daniels, when she sought to sell her own Trump story.
She
was alleging that she had had a consensual sexual relationship with Mr.
Trump after they met at a celebrity golf tournament about 10 years
earlier (Mr. Trump denies her claims).
Just
two months after Ms. McDougal’s story was effectively muted by her
contract with American Media, Mr. Davidson set about brokering the
silence of the adult film actress. This time, the negotiator on the
other end of the transaction was Mr. Cohen.
The
actress agreed to a $130,000 settlement in mid-October 2016 in exchange
for keeping quiet, according to contracts seen by The Times and people
familiar with the matter. To make the payment, Mr. Cohen created a
Delaware limited liability company called Essential Consultants, news of
which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal last month, and he claimed in a statement first released to The Times last week that the money came from his own pocket.
Ms. Clifford has suggested in recent days that she believes Mr. Cohen has breached that agreement and that she is preparing to speak out.
In 2011, she had told her story about Mr. Trump to two gossip
publications. One of them, In Touch magazine, did not publish the story
after Mr. Cohen warned that he would pursue aggressive legal action, The Associated Press reported last month.
The
other outlet, The Dirty, took down a brief story after Mr. Davidson
threatened legal action just a day after his client had provided
information to the website, according to Nik Richie, The Dirty’s
founder, and a letter seen by The Times.
After
the deal between Ms. McDougal and A.M.I. was completed, Mr. Davidson
regularly exchanged emails, text messages and calls with Mr. Cohen,
according to people familiar with the contacts, including last week,
when Mr. Davidson publicly bolstered Mr. Cohen’s statement that he had
paid Ms. Clifford himself.
Mr. Cohen went on to steer a new client to Mr. Davidson, Chuck LaBella,
a former NBC executive who worked closely with Mr. Trump on “The
Apprentice” and the “Miss USA” pageant. Mr. LaBella had become the
object of an intense Twitter campaign
— led by the comedian and ardent Trump critic Tom Arnold — calling upon
him to share anything he might know about misbehavior by Mr. Trump. He
became a client of Mr. Davidson last fall, according to people familiar
with the arrangement.
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